One Night
by Represent
Summary: Sam had only ever been in one car accident before tonight. Her mother had been stopped at a red light on the way to drop Sam off at school and they had gotten rear ended. It had been jarring; an unexpected and unwelcome shove to the back that had made Sam's ten-year-old eyes fill with unshed tears. That accident felt like a gentle kiss to the cheek compared to this one.
1. Part I

**One Night**

* * *

_Warning: Gore_

* * *

Sam had only ever been in one car accident before tonight. Her mother had been stopped at a red light on the way to drop Sam off at school when they had gotten rear ended. It had been jarring. An unexpected and unwelcome shove to the back that had made Sam's ten-year-old eyes fill with unshed tears. That accident felt like a gentle kiss to the cheek compared to this one.

It started with a graceful slow drift. Just when Sam fully understood she had no control, she didn't know. On the highway there hadn't been much of a need to brake, and as such she didn't feel the sheet of ice that had stolen her car from underneath her. She had been lulled into a trance-like state by the yellow divider line flicking in time with the soft breath of Danny sleeping against the passenger side window and the snores of Tucker sprawled across the backseat. Ambient music playing quietly to keep her company as they made their way through the mountain pass, and through a snowstorm, back to Amity Park from their botched camping trip.

But, as she neared a curve in the road and pressed her foot on the brake to slow, the car just continued to float along, drifting ever so slightly to the left as she steered to the right. Terror filled Sam, like a punch to the solar plexus, as she realized she was going in the wrong direction. Much in the same way one desperately attempts to silence a screaming child, Sam felt the need to grapple for any and all control and try to steer back on course; to overcompensate and overcorrect. Sam had done something very un-Sam-like. She had panicked.

When the car needed a feather like nudge and a steady hand combined with an _ever-so-slight _tap on the gas Sam had yanked the wheel and braked. Hard. And with the finesse of a krumper krumping on an ice rink, her car careened out of her control.

Everything happened so fast. There was no life flashing before her eyes. Instead there was a soft cry and a frantic five seconds of struggle as she fought her car like a bucking horse. Throughout this whole exchange only Tucker woke in the backseat in time to see Sam's pale face and the car weave drunkenly towards the ditch.

"Danny!" Sam cried, sensing things were about to go south. It was her impulse in life-threatening situations to turn to Danny. To rely on his intangibility to protect her vulnerable body from getting impaled or shot at or in this case get twisted along with the metal of her car, but his face was still serene and asleep and they were already tumbling off the shoulder down the bank.

Despite the fact that they were all in the car together, as they rolled down the bluff each of them felt utterly alone in their terror and helplessness. Danny awakened just in time to get knocked right back unconscious. Tucker was pummeled against the seat and the ceiling, respectively, in concert with the car's rolls - seatbelt ironically striking him against the cheek as if to say:_ The one time you take me off..._

Sam had tried to cover her face as an airbag all but suffocated her. She felt as if she was inside a champagne bottle as someone vigorously shook it. Her small body got flung in every direction all at once and her seatbelt cut into her skin with the strain of keeping her in one place. She shut her eyes as the sound of screeching metal and blood screaming in her ears all but overwhelmed her. The crash was deafening. Her limbs jerked out of her own control as she prayed for it to end. And then, after what felt like hours and as if someone had clamped hands over her ears, eerie ringing silence.

Sam was certain what she had just been through was akin to surviving an avalanche. As she whited back in she was limp and disoriented. For a few seconds she tried to gather up some of the senses that had been ripped from her.

She stared forward, realizing she was hanging by her seatbelt. The car was on its roof. Or, at least, what was left of the roof. There wasn't much she recognized as her car anymore. Most of it was crumpled and ripped apart as if a bear had gotten ahold of it in a fit of rage. Snow was seeping through the open holes in the roof, mingling with the tips of her hanging hair. As she stared up at the ground she watched, captivated, as small flecks of blood started to pepper the white snow. She reached up, feeling slick blood pooling and spilling around the curve of the tip of her nose. It felt numb, but she was certain it was broken.

She was pinned by her leg underneath the steering wheel. As she moved to yank it out she was hit with a wave of intense agony and was easily dissuaded as she panted and ground her head back against the headrest until it passed. The sudden burst of pain sharpened her mind and, as a soft groan came from behind her, she remembered her two passengers.

"Tuck-" She tried to say, but it came out as a wheeze.

Her whole body complained as she turned to look to her right at Danny who was hanging, unconscious, like a marionette. He was held in by the lap and chest by his seatbelt. She couldn't see his face behind the veil of his dark hair, but there was a slowly growing pool of blood in the snow underneath them that was dripping from what had to be a head wound.

"Danny, wake up. C'mon." Sam managed out in a small whisper, trying to see if he was breathing. Her own breath fluttered out before her and dissipated like smoke before gaining any volume. She reached across to shake him, but he was unresponsive.

Shivering, she moved to attempt to see Tucker, but her neck wouldn't let her turn to look behind her seat. Instead she peered in the crooked rearview mirror.

"Oh god." Sam choked, seeing Tucker in a crumpled heap, lying on the roof of the car where he had finally fallen to rest after being tumbled about wildly. Unlike Danny and Sam, Tucker hadn't been using his seatbelt. He had jokingly told her to drive safe as he had unbuckled it so that he could lie more comfortably across the backseat. This was all her fault. Sam felt helpless tears start to form in her eyes as her teeth chattered, shock making her numb and giddy.

"T-Tucker." Her voice came out like a bad transmission radio, "Can you hear me? Talk to me. Please talk to me."

There was no noise except the soft music that was still - against all odds - playing through broken speakers. Sam felt a horrible laugh get pulled out of her as the sound of almost elevator music made this whole thing seem like a demented surreal dream. She felt her body trembling against the straps holding her aloft, shock making her dizzy as a wave of exhaustion suddenly battled through her.

She closed her eyes slowly for a moment, dangling weightless.

There was another loud disembodied groan and Sam blinked back awake, realizing that she had unintentionally passed out for god knows how long. She choked, tasting her own blood from where it had pooled in her nose and down her throat. For a long moment she nearly gagged before she spat it out against the snow below. It was still dark outside: nighttime. The only source of illumination was the glow of the dashboard that had yet to run out of battery. Sam listened for the motor, but it was dead. Hopefully the snow that had soaked every inch of her car while it toppled down the ravine would prevent any fires from starting. The pungent smell of gasoline would have battered her, but her nose was clogged with her own blood.

The stillness to her right told her without looking that Danny hadn't moved since she had last checked on him. She shook her head a few times as there was another pained noise from the backseat and she felt her heart pound.

"Tuck, you awake?" She called out again. Fear clenched at her windpipe as she peered into the rearview mirror. She saw his dark shape move a little at her voice. There was the soft chiming nose of different scattered camping supplies getting moved around from where they had fallen out of their bags.

"Yeah." Came the dazed reply.

Sam felt relief flood through her now that she wasn't alone; now that Tucker was alive.

"...Wish I wasn't, though." Tucker's voice added. It should have been humorous, but the statement was dead serious. Sam felt her heart sink.

"How bad?" She asked, peering into the mirror.

"Not sure." His answers were sharp, quick, "Broken ribs." An inhale. "Collarbone. Leg." Inhale. "Hit my head. Seatbelt hit my face."

There was a pained grunt and Sam suddenly saw Tucker's pale face peering back at her, a deep cut across his cheek. He was sitting on the roof of the car as she dangled upside down.

"What happened?" Tucker asked, holding his side with his good arm.

"I'm so sorry." Sam felt her voice crack in hysteria, tears slipping up from her eyes and falling into the snow above her. "The ice, and then the car just slipped, I couldn't-"

"Hey." Tucker interrupted, "We'll figure this out..."

Sam nodded, regretting it as her neck screamed.

"I can't feel my leg." She told Tucker. Everything below her waist was numb. She hoped it was from the freezing cold that had permeated into the car since the crash, "My nose is broken.. my neck hurts... but Danny-"

She broke off, craning her neck again, despite the pain, to try and get a closer look at him.

"He's not...?" Tucker asked dreadfully, assuming the worst by the way Sam had fallen silent.

Sam strained her eyes in the low light. His chest was moving almost imperceptibly in shallow breathes.

"He's breathing." Sam announced, "He's breathing." She repeated, almost to herself as a prayer.

Tucker was moving slowly along the crushed in roof of the car, avoiding sharp twisted metal and shrapnel as he did so. There was barely enough space for him to pick his way through, but soon enough his face was next to Sam's.

"You shouldn't be moving around." Sam told him half-heartedly, "We should try and stay still until help comes."

"You think help is coming?" Tucker asked her. The question made Sam fall silent. Of course help was coming. They were in the mountain pass, but people came through here all the time... right? It was midnight when they crashed so probably no one would come until morning, but someone would notice. Sam felt her mind spin as she realized that no- _no one would notice_. It was still snowing vigorously outside. The snow would cover up the tracks the car had made. The car itself was god knows how far down a ravine, out of immediate sight from the highway. Sam didn't even know what time it was anymore... maybe the snow had already covered them up, hiding them completely from sight in a freezing white blanket.

"No cell service." Tucker told her gravely, reading her thoughts as he too was coming to terms with their predicament, "Not for at least another mile."

"Our parents will notice we haven't come home." Sam told Tucker, teeth chattering as the snow melted in through the shattered windshield, "They'll search for us."

Tucker didn't say anything as he turned his full attention to Danny, but Sam knew exactly what he wanted to say. They had left a day early due to the oncoming snowstorm. No one expected them home for another day and a half. By then it would be too late. Sam came to the same conclusion Tucker did, and turned her attention to Danny. He was, after all, the only one of them that could not only turn them all intangible to escape the wreckage, but fly for help.

"He hit his head pretty bad." Tucker pulled back some of Danny's bangs and Sam saw a glimpse of a bright splash of green and red blood as well as the dark angry bruise that was spreading along his left right temple. Tucker tapped Danny's cheeks a few times, gathering snow from where he was crouched near the broken out window and flicking it into his face, but Danny didn't stir whatsoever. Tucker rooted around the strewn clothing and camping supplies and deflated airbag. He pulled out one of Danny's shirts from underneath a pile of snow and tied it tightly around his head to attempt to stem the bleed. As he did so he caught sight of Danny's right side, which was pressed up against the passenger side door.

"Shit." Tucker said softly.

Sam felt her heart start to sink.

"What?" She tried to look over at Tucker who was awkwardly sitting on the crushed -in roof above the middle console, in-between her and Danny.

"Nothing." Tucker said, his voice high pitched.

"What? _Tell me._ Tell me _right now__._"

"Uhhh… Part of the door is…" Tucker pulled back, face pale, "Its kinda…" He made an impaling gesture into his side.

"Fuck, what do we do? This is all my fault." Sam felt her head hang, tears once again threatening to fall up off of her cheekbones.

"You couldn't have done anything. We hit ice. There was nothing you could do. It'll be fine." Tucker told her, "We're just trapped at the moment. But someone will.. maybe… come.. in like a day. Or two. Hopefully as long as they can still see us. And as long as we don't let the cold kill us. Or shock. Or bleed out…"

Sam was staring at Tucker with growing horror on her face.

"Or one of us could get free and walk until they have cellphone service." Tucker amended. Sam nodded at that.

"I don't know where my phone is." She told him, "Its probably halfway up the bluff."

"I have mine." Tucker pulled his PDA out of his pocket, "But the battery is low."

"Turn it off until we decide what to do." Sam whispered, closing her eyes. She ran her fingers underneath where the seatbelt was cutting into her breasts, making it difficult to breathe.

"I want out of this car." She felt the threads of panic start to worm through her, eating away at her composure. Her fingertips rested on the latch of her seatbelt. The urge to undo it nearly bowled her over.

Tucker had retreated back to the back of the car, his breathing harsh and pained. He gave a soft wheezing cough and Sam froze, glancing back up in the mirror again.

"You okay?"

"Don't undo that seatbelt." Tucker told her quietly after he regained his breath, ignoring her question, "Your leg is pinned. It'll only make it worse."

"Danny's going to lose all his blood if he stays upside down like that." Already the snow around Danny was stained bright red and green.

"We can't move him." Tucker rasped. Sam and Tucker had both watched enough of the medical channel and had read up on first aid to know that removing the part of the door that was impaling Danny's side would kill him in minutes.

"He can't help us, Tucker." Sam told him, "We have to save ourselves this time."

* * *

_tbc..._


	2. Part II

Sam and Tucker had fallen into uneasy silence. They figured they would wait maybe an hour for someone to find them, before taking matters into their own hands. As it was they knew they were crunched for time. The snow had yet to let up. It was still pelting down and entombing the car in a ice-cold coffin. Sam watched as it drifted, finding it odd that something so ethereal and peaceful could be so dangerous. Soon enough even trying to dig their way out of the car would be futile.

"We can't wait any longer." Sam spoke up, finding herself so cold she was past shivering at this point. Her lips were blue and she felt an incredible lethargy starting to creep into her muscles. She knew it was too dangerous to fall asleep, although with each passing minute her eyelids felt as if they had weights tugging them down. Like a curtain draped over a mirror after someone died - she knew they might never open back up.

"Tucker?" She asked as she dazedly realized he hadn't responded. "Tuck? You awake?"

Ice cold fear started to reverberate in her chest as she tried to look back at him.

"TUCKER." She nearly screamed.

To her relief he flinched and gazed up at her. His eyelashes had frost coating them and his hair had snow half in it. He looked as if he was slowly becoming ice.

"It's time." Sam whispered.

Tucker nodded at her, but she could see the uncertainty flash across his features. What if he couldn't walk far or fast enough? What if he fell and couldn't bring himself to get back up? What if there was no service, even after he dragged himself with a broken leg a mile down the mountainside? What if he couldn't find them again even after getting help?

"You have to try." Sam wheezed.

"Sam I-" Tucker started, but Sam shook her head.

"You'll be fine. We'll be fine."

Tucker started to push at the door, upside down, testing it to see how hard it would be to open it. The window was busted out, but he wasn't so sure he could fit through it. After a few minutes of digging and pushing he got the hunk of metal that used to be a door pried open enough that he could slip out.

"I'll be back." Tucker told her, "Stay awake until then."

He paused on the threshold of the door. They both gazed at each other, but found they couldn't think of the proper words to say in a situation such as this.

"Bye." Sam whispered.

"I'll be back." Tucker repeated.

Sam nodded, peering through the rearview mirror as Tucker gave her one last look and left into the dark black abyss outside. She listened to him struggling up the side of the bluff for what seemed like ages, no doubt in incredible pain. Then the sound of him faded into nothing and she was left only with the hiss of the wind and the soft crackle of her music still playing.

As she turned her attention back down to the faintly glowing dashboard she watched as it flicked out, battery dying, dunking her and Danny into absolute darkness and silence. For the first time since the immediate aftermath of the crash she felt utterly alone. Without Tucker to talk to she knew it was going to be difficult to stay awake, and now without even the music for company she was more terrified than ever before. All that was left was her own pain and racing thoughts.

She began to cry softly. The sound of it was comforting in a strange self-fulfilling kind of way, much like an infant sucking its own thumb.

Minutes passed. Hours passed. Sam felt as if she would drive herself insane with nothing but her own mind for company. Her head felt like it might explode and she forced herself to perform awkward sit ups every twenty minutes or so to get her head above her heart lest she blackout from hanging upside down for so long.

She couldn't even see Danny next to her anymore. He was a faint outline in the dim moonlight. Sam wondered darkly if he had stopped breathing. If she was hanging limply next to a corpse, for she had no way of checking short of reaching out and touching his ice cold limp arm.

After crying was no longer appealing she lapsed into singing to herself. She sang every song she knew by heart. Lullabies and old rock songs. Her favorite Humpty Dumpty ballads and some old camp classics. Even the Casper High fight song, which, weirdly enough, filled her with a renewed sense of strength. She sang until her lungs could hardly take it; until she felt as if she had inhaled a pound of snow and she was frozen from the inside out. Her lips were numb and her breathing started to hitch, catching in-between the refrains.

Tucker would come back. Soon. Any minute now. She had no idea how long he had been gone, but she refused to give up on him - on herself. He was her last hope.

She blinked a few times, finding herself mentally drifting. With a few shakes of her head she picked up from where she had left off, stuttering on the notes. It was halfway through a trembling "You Are My Sunshine" when she heard a creak of metal and a soft gasp.

"Danny?" Sam could hardly believe it, but there was no movement that she could sense to her right. "Danny was that you?"

She felt the car rock slightly and there was the sound of sniffing. Animalistic sniffing. Sam swallowed a scream as she froze, head tilted, eyes wide and unseeing. She gazed forward at the broken windshield as the car rocked again. Some curious creature had discovered them and was attempting to figure out what they were. It was only now Sam remembered they were deep in a mountainous wilderness. One she had gushed about only a few days before.

A bear? A racoon? Whatever it was, it was heavy enough to rock what was left of the car.

To her right was another sharp groan. Sam froze, looking over at Danny, half relieved he was making noise, half wanting to strangle him into silence.

But, Danny was waking back up into a world of darkness, pain, and confusion. He gave a loud hiss as he started to claw in front of himself - feeling trapped inside a nightmare as he attempted to sit up. A wave of intense pain crashed through him, racing up his side and his spine like a knife and he felt a sharp cry get jettisoned out of his lips. He was pinned through agony and belts to his chest and lap. Besides his arms the rest of him was trapped through minute movements. His head was pounding violently and he was dazed, unable to make sense of where he was or what had happened to him.

"Shh Danny, shh." Sam whispered, still frozen in horror as she heard the animal start to sniff again. It had paused briefly in shock at Danny's noise.

The car suddenly filled with the faint glow of Danny's ectoplasm and Sam saw a huge looming dark shape hunched on the other side of the windshield - two illuminated red eyes stared back at her and its sharp teeth glinted a reflective green.

Sam stared at it. Normally when she found herself face to face with the majesty of mother nature she was awed and inspired. Unfortunately this creature wasn't an image on a nature documentary. It was extremely real and extremely dangerous.

Instead of terror seizing her she felt a wave of indignation. This wasn't _fair!_ They had crashed their car and had almost no hope of rescue, and now a giant wolf was going to tear her apart? Cold hard fury overwhelmed her and she grabbed anything and everything in her immediate vicinity to prepare for battle. An empty water bottle and the keys to the car were all she could come up with along with strewn clothes.

The wolf was digging again, but Danny's brief burst of ectoplasm had faded leaving only the faint glint of a pair of nocturnal eyes merely feet away from Sam.

"Great. Just great. Is this some kind of test?" Sam wondered, turning her eyes down towards her feet and ultimately up at the sky. She wasn't a religious person, but she oftentimes found herself directing these kind of questions to some deity she didn't believe in. The question echoed around in her and she found herself screaming it again and again as she threw the water bottle towards the eyes and the keys with it.

"IS THIS A TEST?!" She roared up into the pitch black darkness, "IS IT?! _HUH?!_"

It ripped, raw, out of her throat and seemed to reverberate around inside car before hitting the wolf in the face.

The wolf gave a strange yip and vanished, spooked, into the inky darkness.

It was only a matter of time until it returned, however, with more of its friends. Sam felt her heart pounding in her chest. The whole ordeal had snapped her back into sharp clarity. She was no longer sleepy, but instead in a blind panic to get _out. _Funny how, like swaying on that tightrope, Sam only ever felt truly alive when she was one step away from death.

She tugged at her leg again, ignoring the pain. Hot blood was running down her calf as she slammed her hands over and over into the dashboard and swore with the practiced ease of a sailor, before grappling around the ceiling below her, yet again, for anything she could use as a weapon. Her fluttering hand hit Danny's limp one and she grabbed it tightly, feeling the very small twitch of his fingers against hers. He was awake?

"Danny?" She asked, trying to see him through the darkness. The momentary flash of green light had faded.

His hand twitched against hers and she tugged it, squeezing it encouragingly.

"Say something." She ordered, but was met with silence.

"C'mon." She was relentless. He had just groaned and cried out. She knew that, however briefly, he had woken up. Sam didn't know a lot about head wounds. Had he hit his head so hard he couldn't speak anymore? Did he remember her still? Was he rendered lame? "I know you're awake, Danny." She coaxed, "And I know its hard to believe, but _I need you._ You hear that? Don't make me have to repeat myself."

His fingers were limp once again in her grasp, but she continued to tug at his arm and squeeze his until they warmed.

"Danny!" She hissed after a long moment of him not moving, "_I swear to god. _Do _not_ make me go through this alone."

"...'our not…"

Sam almost missed it, it was said so softly.

"What?" She breathed, yanking on his hand again, afraid he would lapse back into unconsciousness.

"-hurts. Don't." Danny told her, voice a bit louder. Sam stopped tugging immediately, but didn't let go of his hand.

"You're not dead."

Danny merely gave her hand a weak squeeze in response before his hand relaxed in hers. Sam's eyes had adjusted enough in the moonlight to see his form, still, next to her. His eyes were closed, mouth slack. Sam felt a flurry of worry.

"Danny?" He seemed to have drifted into the land of unconsciousness again, "Come back. Hey- Stay with me."

Despite the fact that the had told her not to, she tugged on his arm again and watched him reanimate, giving a soft pained grunt. He shook his head once but stiffened at the motion with a weak gasp.

"Sorry." She told him, "But you have to stay awake."

"Where..?" Danny's voice was dreamy and undefined. Like he didn't have complete control over his lips. His eyes were muddy, staring blankly forward at the windshield.

Sam suddenly knew something was wrong.

"Do you know your name?" She asked him, trepidation knawing in her belly. She was met with heavy silence for a long moment in which she watched Danny battle to keep his eyes open.

"Danny." He whispered faintly.

"What's my name?"

He struggled, the soft glow of his eyes bathed them in unnatural green light as he studied her. There was recognition in them, but he didn't seem to have the ability to form her name. It was as if he knew the significance of her, but couldn't sound out the letters.

"It's okay." Sam told him, seeing the growing frustration in his dark brows. It _wasn't_ okay, though.

"No- it's…" He tried again, before falling silent.

"It's fine. Forget it. You hit your head really hard. You'll remember eventually." Sam told him, although her voice was trembling.

"Sam." He managed out. His eyes seemed to clear. His pupils, which had been completely dilated, sharpened. He was actually looking at her in the face, instead of staring blankly somewhere to her left.

"That's right." Sam beamed at him, relieved, "Do you remember where we are?'

Danny fell uncharacteristically silent again. Sam paused, looking over at him and seeing his eyes struggling to stay focused. She continued to talk to him, however, her grip in his hand tight as she battled for his clarity. One minute he would be responding to her, the next nearly catatonic. In his more zombie-like phases he pawed clumsily at the makeshift tourniquet around his head until Sam was forced to grab his hand to prevent him from removing it. The more she tried to keep him aware the more scared for him she became.

"We were in a car accident. Tucker is getting help. He will be back any minute-" Sam paused as she watched Danny start to shift back and forth in his seat, "...What are you doing?"

Danny reached up from where his arms had been dangling and was grasping at something to his right.

"Can't-" He was muttering. Sam instantly realized what had preoccupied him.

"Don't touch it." She grabbed at one of his hands and yanked it back, ignoring the pained noise Danny gave at the tug.

"There's something in my side." Danny told her matter-of-factly. He didn't sound nearly as distraught as he should be. Maybe it wasn't so bad? Sam hadn't actually seen whatever Tucker had seen. She couldn't see Danny's right side. As it was she could barely see his outline.

He hung there, staring, for a long moment.

"Danny?" Sam snapped her finger a few times.

His face was growing more and more alarmed as he stared down at his side. Sam could only watch as suddenly the veil of his concussion lifted and he seemed to actually understand what had happened to him.

"Don't look at it."

His blue eyes flicked up to hers, barely visible in the curtain of night, studying her critically. He seemed to have taken an inventory of his own injuries and, instead of being concerned for himself, came to the conclusion that Sam must have equally ghastly wounds.

"Sam are- are _you_ okay?"

Sam paused at that question. She hadn't really been paying attention to herself for the past ten minutes, too focused on making sure Danny didn't slip off and leave her alone again to fend for herself when her wolf brethren returned. Maybe she was being selfish. Maybe she should have let Danny remain blissfully unaware. At least then he wouldn't be looking at her with a face that told her he had just seen his own insides. At least then if the wolves returned and ate them alive he wouldn't have noticed. Could wolves smell blood? Her nose was full of it. Her leg was oozing it. Danny's side was no doubt leaking it.

These were the kind of dark thoughts that had seized control of Sam's mind.

"Sam?" He repeated.

"My leg is pinned. It hurts whenever I move it. My neck hurts and my nose is broken. Other than that I'm not sure. Most of me is numb at this point... I'm so cold." Her voice was weezy and tired as she fought her own exhaustion. Her head was spinning at such a constant rate from hanging upside down at this point she had forgotten what it felt like before.

"I'll get you out." He was nodding to himself and suddenly the car was bathed once again in a weak green glow.

"You can't." Sam closed her eyes against the light and couldn't find the strength to reopen them.

"Why not?"

"Because you're impaled."

"I didn't say I was getting _me_ out." He gave her a wry grin, "I might be stuck, but you don't have to be..."

"...Was that a pu-?"

Danny's hand found hers clumsily.

"Ready?" He asked her.

"No-!" She ripped her hand out of his. He stared at her, confused.

"I don't want to lay in ice." She looked down pointedly at the snow covering the roof of the upturned car. The capsule itself had - like an igloo - kept them relatively warm in comparison to outside for the past few hours. As long as they didn't coat themselves with ice or fall asleep they stood a fair chance of not freezing to death.

She slipped her free hand away from Danny should he try to grab it again, and instead placed it underneath her butt and the seat. Her hand felt like like a limp and foreign thing.

"What about your leg?" Danny asked her softly.

Sam shrugged.

Truthfully she was terrified of what she would see should Danny free her from the confines of the crushed-in steering wheel. Would she even have a leg left? Was she permanently crippled? Sam didn't know if she could handle that right now. Already she was teetering along the cusp of shock.

Danny was staring at her, confused, but he made no further attempt to free her.

"Where's Tucker?" He asked.

Sam started and looked over at him from where she had been staring up into her lap.

"He's getting help. He will be back any minute now." Sam felt the insides of her grow even colder, if possible, at Danny's question. It was a small sign that his head injury was much more serious than he was trying to let on. Sam was finding it difficult to tell if he was entirely lucid in the darkness. His words had a loping lazy slur to them.

"Right, right." Danny breathed, but the silence that followed his words admitted that he didn't remember the first time Sam had told him that.

The moment of silence was ruptured by a distant chorus of howls.

Sam felt a shudder race through her at the implications of it.

"We have company." She told Danny dryly. Her eyes were still closed as she let her head hang, still sitting on her hands to warm them. She attempted to curl her free leg up into her chest in order to huddle her body into a ball.

She felt Danny's hand pull hers free. He gave it a soft squeeze that said _I'm not going to let you die._

Sam, selfishly, found this very comforting.

But, if anyone should be doing the comforting it should be her, comforting him. However, it seemed that these roles were so ingrained in them that - even now - in their possible last moments they fell into place.

"You have nothing to be afraid of." Danny told her, and she knew this to be true. Because even impaled and half-dazed Danny would never let a wolf get to her. Not without being torn to pieces himself.

"I was doing just fine on my own. I'm not afraid." She spat back at him, hiding behind a veneer of stubborn independence and bravery.

"Good."

"Danny…" Sam looked away from him as she breathed slowly. Her eyes slipped shut again, this time ice gluing her eyelashes together. It seemed that she had been holding back the tide of sleep for so long out of necessity, that now that she no longer had to carry herself and Danny it had broken through the dam. "I never meant for any of this to happen. I'm sorry." She told him faintly.

She could sense him inspecting her. His fingers were rubbing hers softly.

"Wait- you mean you _didn't_ want to crash your car down a snowy ravine?" Danny joked. Sam, despite herself, laughed.

"Because I mean, for a minute there I thought this was just another one of your ploys to get us closer to nature…" Danny continued.

"Yes this was all my diabolical plan." Sam wheezed in between soundless chuckles, the banter enough to take her mind off of the fact that they were dying. But at least if they were dying they were dying together.

"The whole 'returning your body to the earth from whence it came' is kind of expected. I thought you'd go for something a little more unique. I have to say I'm kind of disappointed."

"What? Getting eaten by wolves is too mainstream?" Sam snorted.

"Ah- there it is." Danny's fingers paused in their rubbing, "Of course, the typical Manson dramatic plot twist. It wouldn't be a true Sam-death without gore."

"I'm never typical." Sam managed out faintly, feeling her mind start to drift. She was experiencing this conversation as if through a long tunnel in which she was being tugged further and further away from Danny's warm hand and his calming voice.

"No. You are a lot of things, but typical isn't one of them." Danny agreed with her. Sam felt a hand brush across her cheek but she was already so far away from him.

"Sam?" Her name barely reached her. "Sam you're leaving me." A gentle pat on her cheek, "Hey, its not your time to go yet." Another pat, this time more insistent.

But she was too tired.

She woke up days later blurting Danny's name out, finding herself in a white hospital bed with Tucker by her side in a wheelchair, brandishing a tub of ice cream. She would never truly know if what she had seen and heard during that last hour had actually transpired or if they had just been in a dream.

If it had been a dream, it had been a fantastical dream.

One of Danny holding her cheeks with his hands; of him kissing her resolutely on her ice cold lips. Of the ghost of him tugging them both from the car and holding her close to his body as if she was a precious doll, sinking in the snow around them. Of his body trembling in pain, and the sound of his uneven hitching breathes. Of being surrounded by huge looming snow-filled aspens that swayed over them like silent protectors. Of snow falling like petals against her cheeks. In her dream there were wolves, lots of them, prowling around them in circles as if performing some kind of ritual. Their howls bathed them in an eerie soundtrack; their eyes glowed absurdly in the neon green light as Danny simultaneously shot a beam of light into the sky and protected both of them from the world outside. And then, there had been bobbing white orbs. Danny's hoarse voice calling out. Shots fired. The yips of wolves scattering back into the forest. The beacon flickering into nothingness; Danny's body flickering into nothingness. Strong warm hands ripping her out of the snow. Fingers scrambling at her neck and a multitude of voices. For a long moment she wondered where Danny was, if he was okay and how he had managed to get out of the car without bleeding to death, before she followed that seemingly unending tunnel to be absorbed by the full moon.

* * *

_fin_


End file.
